


eternity, i’m sure it feels the same

by winterwarlock



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Reunion, bucky takes care of goats and I can’t get over it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 03:55:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14536092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterwarlock/pseuds/winterwarlock
Summary: When he wakes up, they give him a room in the palace and a position with the War Dogs.// Minor cw spoilers





	eternity, i’m sure it feels the same

When he wakes up, they give him a room in the palace and a position with the War Dogs.

All he wants is peace and quiet, like what he was starting to cultivate in his tiny little Romanian apartment. But he can’t say no. These people saved him, gave him refuge out of nothing but good will. He can’t refuse their kindness. He can’t refuse the opportunity to pay the debt he now owes.

The room is beautiful. It’s bigger than the entire apartment he and Steve shared in Brooklyn. The ceilings are high and the glittering walls are draped in luxe purple and black tapestries. The bedding is a similar color and is soft to the touch. Large windows look out on the palace city and beyond that, thick jungles. The first time Bucky sees the sunset from his room he feels his breath catch in his throat. Finding peace in a place like this is unimaginable to him, even though he already lives it. He feels like he’s just waiting for it all to be ripped away. He hadn’t even thought he’d find a life where he isn’t constantly on the run.

Despite the refuge Wakanda offers physically, he can’t find that same peace internally. Every beautiful sunset means an onslaught of nightmares. He hasn’t slept through the night since they brought him out of cryosleep. Working with the War Dogs is decidedly not helping. Even though Bucky knows it’s safe in Wakanda and his trigger words are gone (and god, will that forever haunt him, being surrounded by armed men as a doctor read off his trigger words, the feeling of sheer terror and the ghost of electrifying pain thrumming through his body) it’s too much like Hydra and the Red Room. He’s a glorified consultant, giving his input on operations and even training the spies. He shakes uncontrollably up until he reports for duty each day, only stopping when eyes lay expectantly on him. At night his victims haunt him. He wakes up screaming more often than not and is glad every time for the privacy he’s been afforded.

If anyone can tell Bucky’s a walking ghost, they don’t say anything. He doesn’t expect them to—his personal demons are rightfully low on the totem pole of issues, especially when T’Challa is navigating the dangerous waters of opening Wakanda to the world. Maintaining the prowess of the War Dogs is essential to a smooth transition for Wakanda and Bucky will be damned if he can’t help.

Shuri is the one who notices, of course. She’s almost too observant for her own good.

“I thought you were feeling better,” she says, trying to sound casual. They’re sitting in her lab late one night as she tinkers with a new improvement for T’Challa’s suit. Bucky likes to spend time with her in the lab. If the war hadn’t happened, if he hadn’t enlisted, if he hadn’t fallen, Bucky would have liked to pursue a career in the sciences. But he’s content, probably even better off, to watch Shuri’s genius at work.

“I am,” Bucky tells her, though it feels fake on his tongue. “I’ll just… never forget.”

Shuri doesn’t have to ask what he means. It hangs thick in the air.

Later in the week Bucky overhears Shuri telling her brother about their conversation. Bucky doesn’t mean to eavesdrop but he can’t exactly turn off the super soldier hearing.

“I don’t think he will be able to heal as long as he’s with the War Dogs,” she says. Bucky smiles at that. _Little sisters_ , he thinks. He doesn’t remember much about his own, but the feeling settles in his chest like it belongs there.

“I hear he is doing extremely well,” T’Challa answers. Bucky can practically see Shuri roll her eyes. “They have taken to calling him their White Wolf.”

“Of course he’s valuable to them,” Shuri says. “But he is a master of disguise. You will only see the truth on his face when he thinks no one is watching. Do you really think the best place for him is in a spy organization?”

T’Challa doesn’t respond immediately. Bucky hears them walk off. Although he doesn’t want to get his hopes up, he feels some anxiety unfurl in his chest.

Not long after that T’Challa calls Bucky to the throne room. It’s only the second time Bucky’s ever been. The first had been after he’d come out of cryo and T’Challa had offered him unending safety.

They’re alone. T’Challa is standing by the windows when Bucky enters. He doesn’t look up until Bucky joins him.

“You are fond of the border, yes?” T’Challa asks.

“It’s quiet,” Bucky says. His heart begins to pick up in his chest. He’s excited, despite all his attempts to have no expectations.

“The children miss you.” T’Challa’s mouth twitches up in a small smile.

“I can’t remember the last time people weren’t afraid of me.”

“We have a farm that has been recently vacated. The owner is too old to continue maintaining it and has moved to the city to be with his family.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. He can’t imagine why T’Challa would tell him if not to offer it to him, but he will wait for the king to say it himself.

“The War Dogs like you, Sergeant. I like knowing you are there helping them. But it is foolish of me to not realize how hard it must be for you. You are tired. If you want the farm, it’s yours. It is time for the White Wolf to rest.”

Bucky nearly jumps for joy at T’Challa’s words. He really is exhausted down to his bones. More exhausted than he knows how to say. He feels his shoulder slump, releasing tension he hadn’t realized was there until it’s gone. T’Challa sees it, too.

“I already owe you so much, I don’t know how to repay you,” Bucky tells the king truthfully. As relieved as he feels to no longer work with the War Dogs, he feels guilty that he can’t provide for the country.

“The farm is on land owned by the palace. I’m sure you can find a way to pay your rent, Sergeant.”

T’Challa laughs and claps Bucky on the shoulder and, despite himself, Bucky laughs too.

The next day a palace guard takes him to the farm. It’s small and it shows its age. Bucky is excited for the challenge, though, of rehabilitating the facility and taking care of its tenants. He has ten goats, one horse, and a few acres of wheat fields. Thanks to a loan from the royal family, Bucky is able to purchase the entire farm and all of the tools and furniture on the property from the family that previously owned it. The rent is reasonable and Bucky is confident that he’ll even be able to turn a small profit.

For some reason the farm reminds him of Indiana, though he has no memories of the place. If he had to explain, it’s more the feeling of familiarity and comfort that courses through him when he first sets foot on the property than any memory of his early childhood in America’s heartland.

The first night he spends on the farm is the most restful he can remember ever having. The only thing that comes close is in flashes of nights spent curled around a body that’s all pale skin and knobby joints.

It takes him some time to adjust. After seven decades of laying waste to everything he touched, it feels extremely foreign, albeit welcome, to focus solely on growing and nurturing.

Luckily, he has help. The farm isn’t far from the hut he spent time in when he first woke up and the people of the village, surprisingly, seem to miss him. In a revolving door of visitors, Bucky seems to gather the basics of being a goat farmer. He likes having the company in those beginning days, especially when the kids tag along with their parents. No one is afraid of him, but the kids least of all. They squeal in delight as they play with the goats and run around the grassy knoll in front of his small abode. They like to follow Bucky, too, and try to distract him when he’s learning from his new neighbors. The girls can’t keep their hands out of his hair, it seems, and he ends up sporting a new braid every time they visit.

Once the villagers are satisfied with Bucky’s knowledge level, the flurry of visitors seems to calm a bit. He doesn’t mind. They still come by plenty, or he goes to see them, and he enjoys the long, quiet days he spends with his livestock. The goats and the horse become attached to Bucky, and he to them. When Shuri visits, she laughs as the littlest one, Ayo, trots after Bucky like a duckling following her mama. He imagines it does look humorous, a gruff, rugged ex-assassin doting shamelessly on needy goats.

All in all, Bucky is content with his new normal. It strikes him at random one evening as he’s washing his clothes in the small stream in the woods behind his home. He’s content. Bucky isn’t sure how long he’s felt this way, if only because he’s not equipped to recognize what contentment even feels like. But this must be it: calm, fulfilled, even happy, as timid as he may feel to admit that. In the back of his mind something still feels empty, but he’s learned in the last few months to take what he can get when he can get it.

He drops his wet clothes in a basket and hoists the strap over his right arm. The trek to his hut is short, yet up a steep and wooded hill and he’s thankful for the strap on his basket to leave his arm free for balance.

Bucky’s almost too lost in his new feeling to recognize his hairs standing on end as he reaches the crest of the hill. Someone is here and they don’t feel like a neighbor. Although he knows realistically that Wakanda is the safest place to be, he had dreamed many nights of Hydra operatives slipping in unnoticed to reclaim their prized asset.

Abandoning the basket at the edge of the treeline, he sneaks around the outer wall of his home. Part of him wants to slip silently away, but the stronger half doesn’t want to run away anymore, not for himself, nor the goats, nor the horse.

Certain his unannounced visitor hasn’t yet noticed something is amiss, Bucky peers around the edge of his home to get a visual.

“Steve?”

Bucky’s not entirely sure the man before him is more than a mirage, the missing piece manifested by his wanting mind. Steve looks strong and healthy and happy. He’s clad in a comfortable all-black look (Shuri had told him it’s called _athleisure_ these days) and he’s growing in a blonde beard. He smiles when he sees Bucky, although Bucky sees something else in his expression, too. Sadness? Fear? He isn’t sure.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says, looking casual with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his joggers. “I came as soon as I could.”

Bucky approaches him, then. “I didn’t know when I’d see you.” He admits.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. He casts a steel-blue glance around the farm, eyeing the corral of animals just beyond Bucky’s doorstep. “Never thought you’d turn into a farm boy.” His voice is light and Bucky so badly wants to interpret that as approval. All he’s ever wanted is Steve’s approval.

“I like helping things thrive,” He returns. Steve smiles wider.

The air feels thick, then, with unsaid words. It feels like humidity settling across them, signalling a storm on the horizon. Electricity seems to flow between them, a reverberating lightning strike.

Bucky isn’t sure who moves first, but suddenly they’re in each other’s arms. They hold each other tight, all the pain of seventy-some years lost to time bleeding away. When the strength goes from their legs they sink down to the ground. Bucky presses his face into Steve’s neck as Steve takes in a deep breath. It shudders as he lets it out.

“You smell like dirt,” Steve jokes after an indeterminate amount of time. Bucky pretends to ignore how watery his voice sounds.

“Maybe if someone had given me a heads up, I could’ve smelled like roses instead,” He shoots back. Steve chuckles against him, shaking them in their embrace ever so slightly. Bucky commits the feeling to memory.

Steve pulls back and moves his hand to cup Bucky’s face. He brings their foreheads together and holds them there for a moment before moving to cover Bucky’s mouth with his own. It feels so natural, more natural than breathing, like the stardust within them was always destined to meet this way.

“Bucky,” Steve breathes out when he finally breaks the kiss. Bucky doesn’t want to stop. He’d keep kissing Steve till the world was void of air, if that’s what it means to always have Steve with him.

“Bucky, Bucky, Bucky,” Steve babbles, downright _nuzzling_ Bucky’s face. He peppers kisses all over Bucky. They couldn’t always be this demonstrative, even in private, Bucky remembers. Steve kisses him again, deep and slow, hungry for more. 

“I love you.” Steve gasps.

Bucky breathes in. And out. The sun sets below the tree line.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You rock if you made it to the end don’t ever change.


End file.
